


rediscovery

by yadoiangel



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (maybe), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain Yamaguchi Tadashi, Character Study, Emotionally Constipated Tsukishima Kei, Gen, Getting Together, Growing Up, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Pining Tsukishima Kei, Post-Time Skip, Pro Volleyball Player Hinata Shouyou, Pro Volleyball Player Tsukishima Kei, Volleyball Dorks in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26403199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yadoiangel/pseuds/yadoiangel
Summary: Tsukishima Kei is given another chance, and he's finally in the right mindset to not let it go.for TsukiHina Weekend 2020,prompts: Fight + Reunion
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Tsukishima Kei, Tsukishima Kei & Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 83
Collections: Tsukihina Weekend 2020





	rediscovery

**Author's Note:**

> I like to make Tsukki suffer and I can't offer any explanations. I hope you enjoy this! (also please excuse the little mistakes I might've missed I have no beta and I went through this late)

It was just supposed to be one of their usual bickerings, so Tsukishima didn’t know why Hinata had stormed off and left them behind in blinking confusion.

“Um, I’m not the only one who thought that was weird, right?” Tsukishima asked the collective population of the gym, “Weird for Hinata, I mean,” he added, feeling like he needed to clarify in terms of Hinata.

“No, I thought that was weird too,” Yamaguchi answered him, still staring after Hinata’s  _ loud _ departure at the doors.

“What was that about?” Yachi asked as she walked up to them.

“The dumbass and this beanpole were just talking and Tsukishima said something and then Hinata left,” Kageyama supplied, pointing first at Tsukishima and then the exit.

“Perceptive as always, king,” Tsukishima told him sarcastically, and both Yamaguchi and Yachi just stared at him, Yachi with her arms crossed in front of her.

“What?” Tsukishima asked them when no one else said anything.

“What do you mean,  _ what? _ ” Yamaguchi asked him.

“What did you tell him?” Yachi asked at the same time. Tsukishima suddenly feels very targeted, being subjected to his best friend’s captain stare and their manager’s no-nonsense one.

“I just asked him if he’s really sure he wanted to switch to beach volleyball,” Tsukishima said defensively.

“Uh huh, and then what did he say?” Yachi pushed again, already knowing the two by now.

“The dumbass said ‘like I’d go to all the way to Brazil on a whim?’” Kageyama supplied.

“Out with everything, please, don’t make me keep asking,” Yachi said impatiently.

“I just told him I wanted to be sure that his impulsive idiocy hadn’t taken over,” Tsukishima continued.

“And then Hinata said ‘what is it with you and Kageyama?’ and then I told him the beanpole and I are nothing alike,” Kageyama added snarkily, making Yachi and Yamaguchi snort. Tsukishima only rolled his eyes, tired enough from the training that he didn’t want to waste more energy on Kageyama. 

“Then he said ‘I’m going, and I’m serious. The best teams are going to have the best setters, right? So if I'm going to get a great setter and convince him to let me fly, I hafta get good enough to make it on those teams,’ then I just snorted while the king over there just started going on about getting ahead,” Tsukishima pointed at Kageyama. 

“Hinata slammed the doors over  _ that? _ ” Yachi asked doubtfully, while Yamaguchi just stared at his best friend. 

“You really got what he said word per word, huh?” he asked the blonde with an insinuating smile.

“Shut up, Guchi,” Tsukishima told him. 

“No, it was what  _ he _ said,” Kageyama answered Yachi, pointing once again at Tsukishima.

“What did he say?” Yachi asked impatiently. 

“No it wasn't,” Tsukishima quickly said at the same time, pretending he was disinterested with the conversation. 

Yamaguchi knew, of course. He could see the telltale signs of nervousness and self-doubt in his longtime friend, how he looked at his hands a lot more often than usual, how his shoulders were hunched and his brows were scrunched—he was likely thinking back on the entire conversation in his own head, trying to analyze what happened. 

“What did you say, Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asked gently. 

“I told him that he probably won’t grow anymore so his chances of getting into good teams in the league are really slim,” Tsukishima answered after a beat, “But I said that as a joke. I didn’t think he’d storm out,” he added, a bit frustrated and lost. 

“You just insulted him where you knew it’d hit hard, and you didn’t expect him to get mad about it?” Yachi asked with a raise of her eyebrow. She could be intimidating now when she wanted to be, and even Tsukishima was afraid of that raised eyebrow.

“Well I expected him to fight me about it,” Tsukishima mumbled, and Yamaguchi snickered at the face he was making. 

“I think you know what to do here now, Tsukki. Training is still in progress, so go get him,” Yamaguchi told him, telling off everyone else to go back to what they were doing. 

“At least one of us does,” Tsukishima mumbled to himself, making his way to the exit. He found Hinata sprawled on the concrete just outside the gym.

“What’s up with you?” Tsukishima asked snarkily. He was still feeling a little miffed that what should have been just their normal back-and-forths turned into this, and he still couldn’t tell what  _ this _ is.

“I know,” Hinata answered, sitting up and staring past him, “I already know I’m short and that teams won’t want to go for me. I’ve known that all along, Tsukishima,” he intoned, and Tsukishima was taken back by the way he was so serious and the way he said his name.

“That’s why I’m going to Rio. That’s why I’m going to train in beach volleyball and that’s why I’m going to get good enough. I know I’m not gonna be any team’s first choice, so I’m gonna make them choose me instead,” Hinata continued in that same tone, and Tsukishima knew he was seeing himself doing what he said.

It made him shiver, how resolute Hinata was with his goal; it also pissed him off a little bit—how he could be so dedicated to the sport but indifferent to everything else. 

“I was just reminding you,” Tsukishima mumbled, now feeling a little bit guilty.

“Of all the people here, Tsukishima, I thought you’d be the one who would understand that! You’re the one who’s always pointing out how short I am, and how would you do that without always being aware of how short I am huh? You know how good I am regardless of my height, you’ve told me yourself! You’ve even said it once that I’m better than you at volleyball! You’ve been picking on me more than usual about my Rio plan! Why can’t you understand that I  _ have _ to do this, huh?” Hinata was looking at him now, screaming at Tsukishima, and for the first time between the two of them the blonde wished he could take back his words. 

He could see how much it bothered Hinata that Tsukishima didn’t understand, and while he was glad to know that Hinata at least saw him as someone he could trust, he was bothered by how much he wanted more than a teammate’s trust in him from the shorter.

“It’s not that I don’t understand, Hinata, it’s just that I…”  _ wished you’d see me, too, _ Tsukishima couldn’t say, “wanted to make sure, like I said,” he finished, and he let his shoulders slump a little at how lame he was being. He knew Hinata wouldn’t think much of it, anyway.

“You’re always so mean, Tsukishima,” Hinata told him with a scowl, getting up.

“I’m not mean, I’m just being the brain you don’t use most of the time,” Tsukishima returned, and Hinata lunged at him, which he dodged.

“Mean! You’re mean!” Hinata was screaming, and Tsukishima reveled in these moments he’d get with only the two of them more than he would ever admit out loud. 

“What are you gonna do about it?” Tsukishima challenged, still dodging.

“I’m gonna prove to you I can make it into a team! You’ll see, in about 2-3 years from now, I’ll be playing with the greatest players in Japan!” Hinata declared, and Tsukishima was once again dazzled by his shine. It was what made him smile sincerely at the shorter.

“I can’t wait to see it,” he said, then turned back to hide his blush, “We have to go back to training. Guchi’ll chew you out for leaving,” he snickered, and Hinata rushed ahead of him.

“It’s your fault!” the orange head called behind him.

Tsukishima sighed as he walked, feeling sorry for himself. It was a few weeks ago that he noticed how he was acting towards Hinata, and it took him until yesterday (and Yamaguchi’s intervention) to realize what it was that was making him pay more attention to the shorter, that was making him think of Hinata more than he usually did, that was making him feel things that he never felt before. Yamaguchi called it a crush, Tsukishima called it an inconvenience. Whatever he wanted to call it, Tsukishima found it bothersome. Hinata was already irritating enough when Tsukishima just looked at him through the lens of volleyball, but now without that lens, Hinata was so much more—in the sense that his presence in Tsukishima’s life has quadrupled. 

At first, Tsukishima just wanted to ignore it, hoping it would go away on its own, but with every passing day it was getting harder and harder to push aside, especially with the knowledge that Hinata was going away after high school. Tsukishima knew it was the perfect situation for his little crush to die, but with that thought also came the painful tightening in his chest that he didn’t want to think too seriously about. Today was maybe the worst it’s manifested, making him come close to confessing. 

_ Lame, _ he thought of himself. He knew Hinata didn’t—couldn’t—feel the same way about him, knew that the only thing he had in mind was volleyball, and that’s why Tsukishima decided from the get go not to do anything about it, especially confess. It would just make it awkward between them, and with the spring nationals coming up, they needed the team in peak condition. 

He came back into the gym, and pushed aside his thoughts to focus on training. If only he could do the same to the tight feeling in his chest. 

* * *

“So the other day I went and picked Hinata up from the airport,” Yamaguchi casually dropped on one of their weekly dinners together.

“What? He’s here?” Tsukishima asked a little bit too eagerly, and Yamaguchi snickered at him.

“Yeah. He was so tanned…” his friend commented, dangling that crumb in front of the blonde.

“Tch,” Tsukishima clicked his tongue at Yamaguchi, annoyed. Yamaguchi never let him live down his crush on Hinata, despite him saying he’s over it multiple times over the past three years.

“Oh! I forgot, he asked me to give you this too,” Yamaguchi said, rummaging around in his bag. 

He took out a wrapped package and passed it over. Tsukishima tore through the wrapping to see bright pink cloth, and when he held it out in front of him he could see it was a bright pink shirt with a design of ‘Rio de Janeiro’ and the bridge bedazzled on the front. Yamaguchi was outright laughing while Tsukishima only stared at the shirt, fondness and irritation growing in his chest. Hinata always did manage to make him feel all these emotions at once.

“I don’t want it. Take it back,” Tsukishima said after a beat of staring.

“He also told me to give it to you after you say that!” Yamaguchi managed to get out through his laughter. Tsukishima threw the shirt at him, finally allowing himself to smile at their antics.

“You could always give it back to him yourself,” Yamaguchi suggested with a smirk, knowing how long his friend waited, even if said friend wasn’t even aware he was waiting.

“What? Why would I do that?” Tsukishima looked at him with narrow eyes, knowing it was one of Yamaguchi’s ploys to push him towards Hinata.

“What do you mean, why? You don’t want his gift, so give it back to him. It’s simple as that, Tsukki. Besides, you’re gonna see him sooner or later. Better be prepared, right? You don’t wanna just stand there and stare when you see him, right?” Yamaguchi asked teasingly, throwing the shirt back at him.

“Why the hell would I do that?” Tsukishima asked, balling up the shirt in one fist and stuffing it into his bag.

“Something just tells me you would~” Yamaguchi lilted, then went back to eating. 

Tsukishima did the same, his mind going over what Yamaguchi suggested, wanting to prove the other wrong for his misconceptions that Tsukishima still had a crush on Hinata. It was simple enough, he supposed, setting up a meeting to return the shirt. They  _ were _ friends, after all—they’ve kept in touch over the years. Tsukishima figured it was like killing two birds with one stone—he’d return the shirt, and prove to Yamaguchi (and maybe to himself, if he was being honest) that his high school crush was long gone now. He’s survived 3 years without being around Hinata, what would be an afternoon? He could totally handle that.

* * *

Tsukishima could totally  _ not _ handle it. 

He could hear Yamaguchi snickering at him in his head, and he couldn’t even blame himself for thinking it—he felt like laughing at himself too. He was being totally lame, and his mortification just grew the longer he stayed in this little diner talking to a slightly taller, muscled, and tanned Hinata. 

“Rio was so great! The first few weeks were hard, but then I slowly got the hang of the beach and the sand and the wind and I finally found a partner and it was so, so,  _ so _ fun! I learned a lot too, Oh! And did you know I ran into the Great King there?” Hinata was rambling.

The question dragged Tsukishima down to earth, shaking him out of his staring. He couldn’t believe how different Hinata looked, but his talk was still familiar.

“Yeah. You sent me the picture, remember?” Tsukishima pointed out.

“I sent that picture to everyone! Wonder how Kageyama reacted,” Hinata thought out loud, making the blonde snort.

“Probably went ‘dumbass,’” Tsukishima said, doing his best Kageyama impression and making Hinata slap the table and throw his head back in a laugh.

Tsukishima stared again, entranced by the person across him. Hinata felt strange to him now, somehow different and the same simultaneously. Tsukishima wanted to relearn him, wanted to be the one to know him like no one else did, to see the things he changed about himself and the things he kept. 

_ Oh god, Yamaguchi was right,  _ Tsukishima despaired at himself.

“Say, Tsukishima, what have you been up to?” Hinata asked him after a bite of his food.

“Oh, just the normal things,” Tsukishima waved off his question, picking at his food.

He still couldn’t get over the embarrassment of clowning himself. Tsukishima liked to think that he was a fairly well-adjusted guy, but with Hinata that never seemed to be the case. 

After the orange head left for Rio, for a few weeks that he thought he was doing okay was what Yamaguchi called his ‘sulking period,’ and it took him almost a year to accept that he was indeed sulking over the loss. By that point he finally realized the enormity of his crush, how he spent the 3 years in high school getting to know Hinata and not just because he was his teammate like he deluded himself to believe, but because he just wanted to learn everything there was to learn about the shorter. Tsukishima’s made his peace with his high school self, and he spent the past 2 years after that realization trying to get over the crush.

“What’s normal things?” Hinata asked him with a familiar tilt to his forehead Tsukishima could recognize as confusion.

“What normal people do after high school, Hinata. I’m in college, and I’m going to get a job at the Sendai Museum soon,” Tsukishima told him patiently, finding Hinata’s absolutely hopelessness with normality endearing.

“Yamaguchi told me you’re in the V. League though! What team are you playing on?” Hinata told him, getting excited.  _ Of course, still volleyball, _ Tsukishima thought to himself, but it was without the usual pity he’d feel for himself from before, which he took as progress. 

“Yeah, I’m in the Sendai Frogs,” Tsukishima said with a nod, trying not to enjoy the way Hinata was looking at him too much.  _ It’s because I’m on a volleyball team, not because of me, _ he tried telling himself. Suffice it was to say he failed.

“I haven’t looked them up yet. What division are you in? Do you think you’re good? Who’s on the team? Tell me everything, Tsukki!” Hinata asked one after the other, leaning towards the blonde with each one.

“I will if you don’t call me that,” Tsukishima replied, pointing at Hinata’s seat, “And will you please sit down and eat,” he added.

Hinata did, and Tsukishima found himself talking more than he ever enjoyed doing. He was fine with it though, as long as it was Hinata. During the years that Hinata was gone, the two of them would text and call when they would catch each other before bed or just getting ready for the day; Tsukishima didn’t think much of it, thought he was the same way with all of their mutual friends. He thought getting to talk to the shorter in person was so much better than through the phone, and while he kept cautioning himself not to enjoy their time together too much, it was a voice long ignored in his head.

Their afternoon went on like that, simple conversation enjoyed over food. Tsukishima wouldn’t admit it to himself but it was one of the best afternoons he spent with someone else; it was an afternoon where he didn’t mind being in public, where he didn’t mind that the majority of the conversation centered around volleyball, (though being asked about the museum was definitely a bonus, especially since Hinata seemed to hang on to every word he said without impatience) where he didn’t mind that he was with someone loud and more often than not other customers turned their heads toward them. 

He didn’t mind it all, and if he was being honest with himself he didn’t even notice it all that much, all his attention on Hinata—absorbing the same way he talked even if he sometimes slipped into Portuguese, noticing how he didn’t fidget as much as he used to, how he seemed as attentive to Tsukishima as Tsukishima was to him. Most of all, though, Tsukishima saw how Hinata’s eyes weren’t blank anymore whenever they looked at him; saw how Hinata was very much in the now instead of in his volleyball dreamland. 

It gave Tsukishima hope, and for once he didn’t disregard quickly like he would in the past.

“Today was a nice break from training, Tsukishima! Thanks for inviting me out! Say, Yamaguchi told me you were gonna give me something. Did you forget?” Hinata said to him outside of the diner.

“Hm? Oh no, Yamaguchi was just messing with you,” Tsukishima said smoothly, the bright pink Rio shirt—as he called it—still bundled up inside the bag on his shoulder, “Let’s do this again sometime,” Tsukishima said as a parting.

“Yeah, I’d love to hang out again sometime! This was fun! See ya,” Hinata waved at him, walking away.

Tsukishima stared at him, his hold on his bag tightening. He’d return the shirt soon enough, he thought to himself, he just needed to use it as an excuse to see Hinata a few more times before he could find enough courage to stop using it as a reason.

He was older now, after all, and he’s learned from his high school self not to delude himself before Hinata would slip through his fingers again. 

**Author's Note:**

> come scream at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/yadoiAnghel)!


End file.
